$1,500 settles rosary dispute

Board votes to make payment in case of teen told to remove beads

Published 11:42 am, Wednesday, October 27, 2010

In this May photograph, Raymond Hosier with his mother, Chantell Hosier, shows the rosary he was wearing when Schenectady school officials sent him home from school. (Mike Farrell / Times Union)

In this May photograph, Raymond Hosier with his mother, Chantell Hosier, shows the rosary he was wearing when Schenectady school officials sent him home from school. (Mike Farrell / Times Union)

$1,500 settles rosary dispute

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SCHENECTADY -- The Board of Education voted in favor of a resolution awarding what their attorney called a "nuisance value settlement" to the family of a middle school student who had sued so he could continue wearing his rosary beads to school. Raymond Hosier Jr., a seventh-grader at Oneida Middle School, had insisted that the white crucifix with purple rosary beads was in remembrance of his deceased older brother and uncle and had nothing to do with gang activity. The district had asked the 13-year-old Hosier to tuck it under his shirt.

He refused, and was suspended for violating the district's code of conduct. At the time, the district argued they were trying to maintain a gang-free environment and that "beads could be an identifier of gangs."

The issue attracted so much attention that it led to a national television appearance on Fox for the Hosiers, and a Christian group filed a federal suit in June alleging the student's First and 14th Amendment rights had been violated.

Later that month, a federal judge signed an order allowing the youth to wear his rosary until September so the two sides could resolve the matter over the summer. In August, district officials said they would revise their policy and allow Hosier to openly wear the religious symbol after John Yagielski took over as interim superintendent. Hosier is now a student in the Mohansen Central School district. His family could not be reached Wednesday for comment. The board approved the settlement by a vote of 6-1.

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On Wednesday, the lone dissenting vote came from board member Gary Farkas who said "paying one penny is one penny too much."

"This is absolutely absurd and I'm totally against it," Farkas added.

Board President Cathy Lewis took a different view. "It's a reasonable settlement from the school district's perspective because we don't wish to incur any more legal fees," Lewis said during a conversation before the meeting.

Board attorney Shari Greenleaf read a statement that said "payment of a nuisance value settlement in no way is an indication that the district has ever violated the student's rights, nor is it an admission that the prior code of conduct and maintenance of public order was legally defective in any respect." The legal fees were what prompted the settlement, according to language in the resolution.

Paul Nelson can be reached at 454-5347 or by email at pnelson@timesunion.com